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A small, good thing

Music Features

Missionary man

Working with writer Sid Griffin (himself a veteran of the very Parsons-influenced roots-rock band the Long Riders), Hennig goes a long way toward clearing up any confusion regarding his subject’s life and music. It appears there isn’t much in the way of archival footage of the International Submarine Band — a group Parsons formed during a semester he spent failing out of Harvard — or even filmed interviews with Parsons himself. So Hennig relies on people close to Parsons to tell the story. There’s Byrds bassist Chris Hillman, who founded the Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram. Keith Richards, who “gave” Gram the Stones song “Wild Horses” for his final album with the Burrito Brothers, 1970’s Burrito Deluxe. Notorious road manager Phil Kaufman, who “stole” Gram’s body from LAX and attempted a botched cremation in the Joshua Tree desert. A dignified Emmylou Harris paints an empathetic portrait of a pathetic, drug-addled Gram in the years leading up to his death. And Gram’s wife and sister gently provide the details of his lovable if damaged private side.

What emerges is a charismatic, privileged, ambitious, immature product of two alcoholic parents who found a kind of salvation in rock stardom and comfort in the warm reception from stars like the Byrds and the Stones. His mom came from money; his father came from music. She drank herself to death before Gram left for Harvard; the father had already committed suicide when Gram was just a boy. An alcoholic stepfather and younger sister were all he had when a starstruck Gram landed in LA and hooked up with Stephen Stills and the Byrds. Keith Richards romanticizes Parsons as a magical presence who had a voice that made women weep; Hillman and early Eagles member Bernie Leadon, two of Gram’s fellow Burrito Brothers, are, like Harris, a bit more circumspect. Parsons quit the Byrds, legend has it, after Keith gave him the grim facts about their next tour stop, apartheid-torn South Africa. Hillman suggests that Parsons stayed behind in England because he wanted to hang out with the Stones. All it takes is a quick clip of Parsons, outfitted like the rest of the Burrito Brothers in gaudy Nudie cowboy suits and aping Mick Jagger’s stage moves, to sense where the truth lies.

Along with being one of Parsons’s best songwriting partners, Hillman seems to have played a stabilizing role in Gram’s life. He even took the trouble to introduce Parsons to Emmylou after Parsons had abandoned the Burrito Brothers to hang out with Keith in France in the months leading up to Exile on Main St. Emmylou, in turn, recounts chaotic rehearsals where songs had no beginnings, middles, or endings when she showed up for what would be the final phase of Parsons’s career. That’s something that doesn’t quite come through in the liner notes (by Holly George-Warren and Parke Puterbaugh) to The Complete Reprise Sessions. Instead, seasoned pros like Elvis Presley’s band — especially guitarist James Burton — suddenly appear along with pedal-steel specialists Buddy Emmons and Al Perkins to rescue 1972’s GP and 1973’s Grievous Angel (both Reprise) from drugged-out oblivion.

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